Our courageous and beautiful friend from Canada, Kelly, has gotten herself a Bellicon and has decided to take on the 45 X 45 Challenge! That means bouncing for 45 consecutive days, for at least 45 minutes a day. (Plus, you get up to two “Jokers,” that is, you can miss up to two days, but those require an extra two days of bouncing each at the end of the 45 days.)

In these low-quality film grabs (screenshots), taken about 7 days in, you can see just how much space Kelly’s graceful body moves through in a matter of moments. Multiply that by 45 minutes, and then by 45 days, and you can see why its likely to have such a positive effect on Kelly’s — or anybody’s — physical form and functioning.

Think of it this way: as you accelerate and move your legs and arms (and potentially light handweights) through space, over time, you are doing a lot of good work and generating a lot of power. (It’s relatively easy to play out the classic Newtonian physics formulae here, but we’ll save that for another entry.) But somehow, it’s still fun and most of the time — but not always! — relatively easy to do. You can listen to your favorite rock ‘n’ roll, talk to your mother or your clients using a wireless headset, or just watch TV.

Personally, Kelly has inspired me to re-up my own practice, so I’m now on day 8 of a 55X55. It just keeps getting better!

Rebound more is better. The more you bounce, the better your results will be, and while I suppose each of us may have some upper limit on how much is safe and how much is too much, by and large, it’s better to bounce more often than less. (There are other things to say here, too, about how sometimes if you’re sick you shouldn’t bounce more, or tired, or if you have already been bouncing for a while and quieted down, it might not make a lot of sense to “power up” again.) For me, “more” means about 45 minutes a day, up to 2 hours maximum. The only time I’ll go beyond that is if set a purposeful rebounding marathon or I’m recording (or bouncing to a Giants game, which can go on for a few hours, but it’s not very focused).

BouncingMan stretches with band while sitting on gym ball

Now, while “Rebound More” is a great starting maxim, “Rebound Less” is important too, because it stands for ways of rebounding with Less than the optimal rebounding equipment, all the up to completely rebounder-less rebounding. The optimal equipment is easy to define: it is a full-sized bungee-based German-made rebounder, undoubtedly the state of the art for right now. (That might change, and things might get even better, with optimal equipment being affordable to all.) If you happen to have a German built bungee-based rebounder, then congratulations at having the optimal equipment at your disposal. But if you have something else, have no fear, because we are going to put forth a Guide with Video Lessons for how to best work with older and less-optimal equipment (as well as with no rebounder at all).

The genesis of this project started when a few Amish folks called me on the phone to ask me about my rebounding guide, the book I had with lessons. I said I didn’t really have one yet, but I could make one, but they could look at such and such including some beginning video lessons and the big book I wrote in .pdf format. “We don’t have the Internet,” they simply responded. Of course, I was talking on the phone to people who only make one phone call a week, so I should have known that.

In any case, we now believe there are quite a few Amish who want to stay healthy, and who have old-style, 1980′s, spring-based rebounders in their barns or garages. I want those folks to be able to experience the wonders of rebounding, the magic of bouncing, and that’s one good reason to have a Guide for those without the optimal equipment.

Also, a lot of us, when we travel, just can’t bring our rebounders with us, optimal or not. So, there is also going to be a focus on certain equipment that is smaller and costs a lot than a full-sized high-quality rebounder yet gives one some of the feelings and impressions, and the opportunity for the same or at least similar kind of work, as does a full-sized rebounder. Such equipment might include:

the big Swedish balls that you see in gyms that you can sit on and give yourself a bouncing like experience on

the full-sized 1-2 sphere Bosu ball, that you can stand on and bounce

the small-sized Bosu balls; you need two for this, and put one foot on each of them to give yourself a patterned rhytmic, up and down motion

beds…well…not such a good idea, maybe, but if you stay on your knees, or bounce on the edge, it’s still better than absolutely nothing

full-sized trampolines — difficult to control, but obviously, with careful attention placed on what you are doing, you can keep yourself safe

There may be other types of equipment too that would work. It is, of course, possible to transfer a small amount of the Basics of Bouncing to just regular feet on a regular floor, that is, no elastic element at all to amplify your intention and energy as a rebounder tends to, but it’s hard to do this and is usually not very much fun.

As for fun, the Bosu balls and the Swedish balls can all be a lot of fun. First you can use small weights and bands that you bring with you if you are traveling. Second, you can do breath work. Third, you can do upper body mobility exercises (like arm circles and 360′ Vitruvean Coverage work) without any problem.

So, I think this will be one of the first three Guides that is written. Love to hear your feedback and other ideas.

A few years ago I was trying to put together a “consortium” to advance the cause of rebound exercise. The result was a brochure that I then put online as a website of the same name, which is http://aboundinghealth.com. It briefly describes some of the benefits of rebounding, and who might benefit from them. If you want a quick way into the possibilities that rebounding might hold for you, I invite you to go take a look.

Today I found myself at the gym. I manage to get there about once a week, although I’d probably be better off going twice, once for upper body and once for lower (along with my other stretching and activities, going through some of my old Tae Kwon Do kicks and stretches, etc.). In addition to rebounding almost every day, I go to the gym on this schedule because there are certain things I can do at the gym that I can not do at home, including lifting fairly heavy weights, which I find psychologically and physiologically rewarding.

The interesting thing is that over time I find myself bringing more and more of my rebounding to my infrequent gym visits. Today, for example, I found myself on a Bosu ball — one of those half-sphere blue balls used for stability work – doing a kind of semi-plyometrics routine consisting of leveraged flys and other patterned lifting of two light hand weights in coordination with a kind of bouncing up and down on the ball.

Of course, I also bring to the gym a number of other things that bouncing has taught me. Examples include more inner body awareness (see my coming post on the 7 Levels of Sensing and Feeling) to the desire to move my body through the entire 3-D physical space that it is capable of occupying, which I associated with DaVinci’s famous Vitruvean man (more on this later).

Bottom line: if you don’t have a rebounder, but do have a Bosu ball, or a bed, or a full-sized trampoline (be careful!), or even just a light pair of handweights, you can begin experimenting with some of the gravity-assisted benefits that reboundings seems to offer people. Better yet is to get yourself the best rebounder you can afford!

“What is Rebound Therapy? Briefly, it is the phrase that describes the specific ‘Eddy Anderson model’ of exercise therapy which uses trampolines to provide opportunities for movement, therapeutic exercise and recreation for people across the whole spectrum of special needs.

Sometimes referred to as special needs trampolining, but that does not give a full picture. The Rebound Therapy training course teaches logical progressions of movement patterns designed to encourage the student to continually develop whilst at the same time experiencing healthy exercise and enjoyment.”

Sounds good to me! I look forward to learning more about Eddy Anderson, and maybe interviewing him if he is available for such a thing. How fabulous it is to find out that people are into this!

Next: Link on Rebound Therapy wikipedia page to some kind of a dissertation done on children benefitting from scientific use of “trampoline therapy.” I guess the word “rebounder” never really stuck in Britain.

“Rebound exercise (or “Rebounding”) is a type of elastically leveraged low-impact exercise usually performed on a device known as a rebounder—sometimes called a “mini-trampoline”—which is directly descended from regular sports or athletic trampolines.

Some of the basic movements and actions of rebound exercise include bouncing in place (sometimes also called “jumping”), jumping jacks, twists, side-to-side motions, running in place, dance movements, and a wide variety of other movements, patterned or un-patterned, with or without the use of hand-weights or other accessories. A wide variety of physical and other benefits are claimed for rebound exercise, which experienced a tremendous upsurge of interest (often called a “fad”)[1] in the mid-1980s. A rebound exercise program can focus on aerobics, strength, or just simple easy non-jarring movement, depending on the needs of the person bouncing.

Typically round, rebounders are much smaller (at about 3 to 4 feet in total diameter) than regular trampolines, and they are not designed for stunts. Other equipment for one or two feet, such as Kangoo Jumps or BOSU balls, can provide a type of rebound exercise experience, and regular, full-size, sports or athletic trampolines can also be used to perform the various movements, routines, programs, and styles that characterize rebound exercise. Rebounders are predominantly used solo in personal homes, but are also found in some health clubs, rehabilitation centers, and as of 2012, just a few dedicated rebounding venues.”

Of course, you don’t need a dedicated rebounding venue, or even the very best rebounding equipment, to get a good bounce in. Bouncing outdoors, like on this lovely California backyard deck, is especially pleasant in good weather.

ReboundWorld is designed to be a hub for all things related to the art and science of rebound exercise — see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebound_exercise. Also called “bouncing” and sometimes even “jumping,” rebounding was a huge fad in the mid-1980s in the United States, and then suddenly, and almost but not completely, died out. The reasons for this are many and varied, and we’ll come back to them over time, but what’s important is that things have changed.

21st Century rebounding is not the same thing. The equipment is world’s better, and more importantly, our understanding of what is and isn’t known about rebounding is much clearer. If you are an enthusiast of rebound exercise — or might want to become one! — then stay tuned.